A eureka moment ... on local curriculum caused by Covid-19

A eureka moment ... on local curriculum caused by covid-19

According to Wikipedia, 'Eureka!' is attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He reportedly proclaimed "Eureka! Eureka!" after he had stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose, after that he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the amount of the part of his body he had submerged. After which he ran down the road naked because he was so excited and wanted to share his idea.

Okay perhaps it's not that exciting but I thought about this while mowing lawns

At the beginning of the year, the staff worked on developing aspects of our local curriculum. The last time we did any extensive work on this was 2009-2010. At that time we decided that our mission statement: 'Learning and growing together' was the right direction for us to take and for that time, I think it was. 'Learning and growing together' epitomises: collegiality, distributed leadership, and students, teachers and community all working together to lift student achievement and outcomes. Our gardens are an ideal symbol for this. They represent a developmental approach to learning. They represent teamwork, community and healthy living.

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And then came covid-19

During covid-19, I believe we came the closest ever to reaching the ideal of our mission statement. We saw families, parents and children, all focussed on their learning in a way that has never, ever happened before. ... but it took a pandemic to do it. It took a pandemic to create the time and focus on bringing about the conditions that made it possible for our mission statement to work. Now, quite frankly, I don't want a pandemic every year just so that we can experience success with our mission statement.

Even with the pandemic, it was brought home to me that some of our families were not able to take part in our learning community in the same way. With a minimal number of families, the decision was by choice, but with the greater majority of families who could not take part in online learning, the issue was one of equity. The families did not have access to computers or the internet, and the school was unable to supply the resources.

For your information, we are just starting to see digital devices sent to the school. This government policy will make a difference for our children. The keywords are: make a difference.

A tentative suggestion

I am going to suggest that perhaps our mission statement/vision should read:

Making a difference in the lives of others

Of course, this would have to mean making a positive difference, but I think this is implied. We can never as a school be a substitute for the home but we can assist children in their development as best we can.

If I look at my board and staff, this is what we strive to do every day. We strive to make a difference ...

• We strive to create beautiful and functional learning spaces, including beautiful gardens and sustainable solar panels.
• We strive to create more useful policies.
• We strive to develop programmes that promote student learning.
• We strive to put values in place so that we all know how the school should work

... and the bottom line is that at school we are all committed to making a difference in the lives of our children and families. It does not take a pandemic to make this happen. We do this every minute of every school day and often out of school hours as well.